Old English Language Essay

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Language is the form of communication system used to express one’s thoughts, ideas and feelings. This can be done through the descriptive vocabulary and grammar among the population. Nearly all the species are capable to transmit information through some sort of pathways, but only people can transmit information through the language which is what makes us different than other species in the world. Think about the first group of people, how difficult it would have been for them to transmit information without using language. How they have gone through the tragical stone age and established the first civilization on this planet. From never having a single word to over hundreds of thousands of words in the modern age, all existed …show more content…
Refer to article The History of English that the development of the oldest English language was the result of the succession of the invasion of Europe during 430 AD and the wars occurred in Europe continent throughout time (The History of English). Because of the prevalent concept of monarchy at old age, the type of language that society spoke was generally determined by the king of a certain period of time. As the result of that, the style of old English is varied along the change of certain eras. Furthermore, most people in modern day will not fully comprehend the old English writing style. As a matter of that, its characters had been changed along with the development of complex forms of language itself. Therefore, to the majority of English speakers in modern day, the old English is a bit senseless when they translated it into modern …show more content…
Here is an example of Old English that illustrate the difficulty that modern English speakers have when they read the old English, the example is from the opening of Beowulf. “Hwæt! Wé Gárdena in géardagum, þéodcyninga þrym gefrúnon,hú ðá æþelingas ellen fremedon.” After being translated into present day English it would be, "Listen! We of the Spear-Danes in the days of yore,of those clan-kings heard of their glory. how those nobles performed courageous deeds.” In contrast with the former, the latter is easier to understand. And it would be extremely different to understand the content of old English context without a reference such as a

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